Left-Wing Discussion Thread II: Behind 700,000 Bunkers

[Tekeristan]

Automation is really going to hurt.

I can't wait for the singularity, as long as everything stays pretty much the same.

Things remaining where they are when it hit is going to end in some pretty big social movements. Whole "we need to eat" thing. :/

Honestly, what excites me the most is what happens to Art in the Age of Automation?
Not just pictures and music, but what about video games as well, especially when combined with growing masses of people with a lot of extra time in their hands, and less profit motive?

It's how I actually imagine we'll keep our minds sharp.

[War Gears]

Automation is really going to hurt.

It seems pretty likely to result in a welfare state. Or maybe a class dictatorship of engineers. One or the other.

[Zakuvia]

Automation is really going to hurt.

It seems pretty likely to result in a welfare state. Or maybe a class dictatorship of engineers. One or the other.

Or a resurgence of resource exploitation barons. The fight over rare-earth metals is going to be...awesome.

[Valgora]

Automation is really going to hurt.

I don't really like automation.

Hell, I don't even like self-driving cars.

[War Gears]

It seems pretty likely to result in a welfare state. Or maybe a class dictatorship of engineers. One or the other.

Or a resurgence of resource exploitation barons. The fight over rare-earth metals is going to be...awesome.

I'm waiting for the day that space travel, genetic engineering, and same sex reproduction becomes more widespread. Then I'm leaving the planet and founding my own society.

[Genivaria]

Or a resurgence of resource exploitation barons. The fight over rare-earth metals is going to be...awesome.

I'm waiting for the day that space travel, genetic engineering, and same sex reproduction becomes more widespread. Then I'm leaving the planet and founding my own society.

We call that Stellaris.

[Torsiedelle]

Automation is really going to hurt.

I never asked for this.

[Tekeristan]

It seems pretty likely to result in a welfare state. Or maybe a class dictatorship of engineers. One or the other.

Or a resurgence of resource exploitation barons. The fight over rare-earth metals is going to be...awesome.

PLENTY of that stuff loaded up in the asteroids.
I believe there's enough gold in one type of asteroid to crash the gold market.

Automation is really going to hurt.

I never asked for this.

It's what we're getting, ahhh!

[Trotskylvania]

Automation is really going to hurt.

I can't wait for the singularity, as long as everything stays pretty much the same.

"I can't wait for everything to change so rapidly and fundamentally that we in the present have no way of predicting what lies beyond the event horizon, as long as everything stays pretty much the same."

Words do have meanings

[Australias (Ancient)]

I can retrain with the money I have saved to another job or hopefully be high enough in a company it won't matter.


Capitalism gave me the job in the first place and I can list my experiences to find another jobs with hard work and actually job networking it won't be difficult to find a job

>Implying you couldn't get that same job in a non-capitalist economy

wew laddie

I would be shot for disagreeing with that system so I wouldn't because I would be dead.

[Mattopilos II]

>Implying you couldn't get that same job in a non-capitalist economy

wew laddie

I would be shot for disagreeing with that system so I wouldn't because I would be dead.

Lol

[Grenartia]

Absolutely wrong. The only thing the free market cares about is pure, unadulterated profit. And what better way to maximize profit than by utilizing unpaid labor?

If that were the case, why was abolitionism primarily spearheaded by the bourgeois historically? Especially here in the US, where the Civil War could be seen as a class war between the feudalistic planter oligarchy and the Northern industrial bourgeoisie?

Because popular opinion had turned against slavery, and so the maximization of profit began to be offset by the loss of profit from people not buying goods produced with slave labor (primarily cash crops). Recall that anti-abolitionism (and indeed, slavery in general) was principally an upper class endeavor anyways. The average southerner had no slaves, and the ruling elite had been responsible for the implementation of slavery in the first place.

A computer can literally do your job. Don't come crying to me when the bourgeois and the ruling elite inevitably replace you with a computer.

1. I can retrain with the money I have saved to another job or 2. hopefully be high enough in a company it won't matter.

Capitalism won't be the one to give a shit about you once a recession takes that all away. Remember that.

Capitalism gave me the job in the first place and I can list my experiences to find another jobs with hard work and actually job networking it won't be difficult to find a job

1. You literally said you have an internship (meaning you work for free), and have only "worked up to this point with shit jobs". Your 'savings' amount to precisely shit if you live in America. Also, assuming you do retrain, I suggest a job that your smartphone can't already do.

2.

1. If you can actually refute it, feel free to do so. But I know you can't, so don't even bother.

2. *ahem* The PRC was built from the same mold as the USSR, and likewise, built its puppet states in its own image, as the USSR itself did. The Sino-Soviet split did nothing to change that.

3. Precisely.

4. You can't even argue that they attempted to be socialist, because it would've been so fucking easy to implement it, that if they were actually trying to, they'd have done it.

5. Only in the same way that growing vegetables in a garden is an unachievable pipe dream. If you don't control the pests, and don't weed the plot, and don't trim the trees growing nearby, of course you won't be able to harvest anything.

6. *yawn* Next time you do a shitty job "refuting" my arguments, please don't attack strawmen, and do something that actually challenges my intellect. I literally could have refuted your so-called "refutation" in my sleep.

1. Depends how pedantic you want to be about "workers owning the means of production". While they were both ultimately planned economies (hence having an overarching state in control), both the USSR and PRC pre-Deng Xiaoping focused heavily on collectivization. In fact, Maoist China went so nuts over communal ownership of industry that it set up small steel foundries in peoples' backyards.

Regardless, an example of a Socialist system that remained ideologically pure was the Paris Commune, and that didn't work out so well for the little failed state seeing as how it only lasted for slightly more than a month.

2. The PRC was so radical it considered Kruschev a revisionist. Sure, it was of the same basic Marxist mold, but they took it quite a bit further than even some of the die-hard Stalinists were willing to go.

3. Refer to point #1.

4. They did try. One of Stalin's first priorities was collectivizing the USSR's farms. It resulted in dekulakization and a massive famine leading to the Holodomor and the deaths of millions. Needless to say, they took a slightly more nuanced approach to Socialism after that.

5. If you steal someone's garden, kill all the plants and replace them with weeds, then blame the previous owner for leaving you with a garden full of weeds, you've got issues.

6. "I'm so smart, look at me! In fact, I'm so smart that I don't even have to refute any of your arguments and simply resort to calling them strawmen. Teehee!"

1. Communal operation, perhaps, but not ownership, considering the state owned everything (kind of required in a command economy).

2. And yet, such changes are more or less trivial. This is not a significantly different color from this.

4. Again, if the state owns the means of production, then by definition, the workers do not own the means of production. What is so hard to understand about that basic fact?

5. If you find a garden filled with weeds, and in the shadow of a bunch of trees filled with pests of all sorts, and you decide to plant vegetables there without dealing with those underlying problems, you've got issues.

6. You seem to be forgetting where I actually did refute your arguments (at least, those which actually addressed what I said).

[Grenartia]

Automation is really going to hurt.

It seems pretty likely to result in a welfare state. Or maybe a class dictatorship of engineers. One or the other.

I prefer the welfare state.

Or a resurgence of resource exploitation barons. The fight over rare-earth metals is going to be...awesome.

PLENTY of that stuff loaded up in the asteroids.
I believe there's enough gold in one type of asteroid to crash the gold market.

Indeed, you're correct.

>Implying you couldn't get that same job in a non-capitalist economy

wew laddie

I would be shot for disagreeing with that system so I wouldn't because I would be dead.

Contrary to popular belief, us socialists are not fascists.

[Sanctissima]

1. Depends how pedantic you want to be about "workers owning the means of production". While they were both ultimately planned economies (hence having an overarching state in control), both the USSR and PRC pre-Deng Xiaoping focused heavily on collectivization. In fact, Maoist China went so nuts over communal ownership of industry that it set up small steel foundries in peoples' backyards.

Regardless, an example of a Socialist system that remained ideologically pure was the Paris Commune, and that didn't work out so well for the little failed state seeing as how it only lasted for slightly more than a month.

2. The PRC was so radical it considered Kruschev a revisionist. Sure, it was of the same basic Marxist mold, but they took it quite a bit further than even some of the die-hard Stalinists were willing to go.

3. Refer to point #1.

4. They did try. One of Stalin's first priorities was collectivizing the USSR's farms. It resulted in dekulakization and a massive famine leading to the Holodomor and the deaths of millions. Needless to say, they took a slightly more nuanced approach to Socialism after that.

5. If you steal someone's garden, kill all the plants and replace them with weeds, then blame the previous owner for leaving you with a garden full of weeds, you've got issues.

6. "I'm so smart, look at me! In fact, I'm so smart that I don't even have to refute any of your arguments and simply resort to calling them strawmen. Teehee!"

1. Communal operation, perhaps, but not ownership, considering the state owned everything (kind of required in a command economy).

2. And yet, such changes are more or less trivial. This is not a significantly different color from this.

4. Again, if the state owns the means of production, then by definition, the workers do not own the means of production. What is so hard to understand about that basic fact?

5. If you find a garden filled with weeds, and in the shadow of a bunch of trees filled with pests of all sorts, and you decide to plant vegetables there without dealing with those underlying problems, you've got issues.

6. You seem to be forgetting where I actually did refute your arguments (at least, those which actually addressed what I said).

1. Initially, they tried going the direct ownership route. Didn't work, so they went with collectivized state ownership.

If anything, that's more of an argument against the futility of holding onto asinine purist interpretations of Socialism. The USSR would not have lasted nearly as long as it did had it done so.

2. It's a difference between having a semi-functional state and an imploded one that needs to completely reject its initial identity just to survive. Why do you think the death toll was so much higher in Maoist China? They stayed exceedingly true to the ideology, and it fucked their country over until Deng said to hell with it.

4. The workers own the means of production through the state by proxy. That is the only way Socialism has ever managed to work on a large scale. If you want to argue that such an interpretation isn't really Socialism, fine, but that just proves my point that your entire ideology is ridiculously purist and unachievable.

5. Yes, I'm sure Communists must think that flowers are weeds and bees are pests. A strong grasp on reality isn't really your ideology's forte.

6. You resorted to ad hominems and strawmen, ignored large parts of my argument in their entirety, and when called out on it proceeded to claim that they didn't "challenge your intellect".

[Kubra]

bruv Fukuyama's thesis was western consensus pretty much through the 90's and even a bit into the 00's
History is a fickle thing to predict with accuracy over long periods, whether historical projections a la fukuyama liberalism or orthodox marxism.

I don't buy into "The End of History" either, but it stands to reason that future Communist regimes will go down the same route as their predecessors, simply due to probability and practically every past historical precedent. The ideology has not resulted in successful states, and this is unlikely to change in the future.

"was we mucked it up three times already" any reason for the French not to have a go at a fourth republic

[Proctopeo]

I don't buy into "The End of History" either, but it stands to reason that future Communist regimes will go down the same route as their predecessors, simply due to probability and practically every past historical precedent. The ideology has not resulted in successful states, and this is unlikely to change in the future.

"was we mucked it up three times already" any reason for the French not to have a go at a fourth republic

The failures of past French republics weren't devastating on the scale of the failed Communist regimes.

[Torrocca]

>Implying you couldn't get that same job in a non-capitalist economy

wew laddie

I would be shot for disagreeing with that system so I wouldn't because I would be dead.

WEWEST OF LADDIES

If I can believe in having a communist society in a democratic capitalist society you can do the reverse in a communist society. We're not Nazis.

[War Gears]

I would be shot for disagreeing with that system so I wouldn't because I would be dead.

WEWEST OF LADDIES

If I can believe in having a communist society in a democratic capitalist society you can do the reverse in a communist society. We're not Nazis.

Yet.

Fascism is the last ploy of socialists who cannot obtain power.

[Torrocca]

WEWEST OF LADDIES

If I can believe in having a communist society in a democratic capitalist society you can do the reverse in a communist society. We're not Nazis.

Yet.

Fascism is the last ploy of socialists who cannot obtain power.

Nah. Unlike Nazis, Socialists, Communists, and probably close to everyone else don't advocate for fucking genocide.

[Trotskylvania]

WEWEST OF LADDIES

If I can believe in having a communist society in a democratic capitalist society you can do the reverse in a communist society. We're not Nazis.

Yet.

Fascism is the last ploy of socialists who cannot obtain power.

Over the course of this thread, you've expressed support for: corporatism, 'syndicalism', nationalism, anti-intellectualism, irrationalism, vitalism.

Sounds like you're projecting.

[War Gears]

Yet.

Fascism is the last ploy of socialists who cannot obtain power.

Nah. Unlike Nazis, Socialists, Communists, and probably close to everyone else don't advocate for fucking genocide.

Neither did a lot of the Nazis originally. I don't see how their genocidal policies in the Second World War somehow prevents socialists from becoming them, especially considering the ethnic cleansing and mass executions done by the USSR (as well as the fascistic characteristics of Stalinism). Utopian views of the revolution aside, most of us don't kid ourselves what would happen to "enemies" whether they be from the opposing class, class traitors, etc.

Mussolini, Hitler, Mosley, Kita, Marinetti, Plenge, Strasser brothers, Goebbels, these are just examples from the top of my head. I'm sure that I could name numerous other figures. Those are some of the most prominent though.

[Kubra]

"was we mucked it up three times already" any reason for the French not to have a go at a fourth republic

The failures of past French republics weren't devastating on the scale of the failed Communist regimes.

Only one of the first four republics didn't end in mass murder tho

[Torrocca]

Nah. Unlike Nazis, Socialists, Communists, and probably close to everyone else don't advocate for fucking genocide.

Neither did a lot of the Nazis originally. I don't see how their genocidal policies in the Second World War somehow prevents socialists from becoming them, especially considering the ethnic cleansing and mass executions done by the USSR (as well as the fascistic characteristics of Stalinism). Utopian views of the revolution aside, most of us don't kid ourselves what would happen to "enemies" whether they be from the opposing class, class traitors, etc.

Mussolini, Hitler, Mosley, Kita, Marinetti, Plenge, Strasser brothers, Goebbels, these are just examples from the top of my head. I'm sure that I could name numerous other figures. Those are some of the most prominent though.

>Mussolini
>Nazi

BAHAHAHA

Also, I'm pretty sure their constant, continual escalations against Jews, Slavs, and basically everyone else, combined with Hitler's own Mein Kampf, AKA the quintessential holy book of Nazi ideology, meant they were going to strive for genocide regardless of if they originally even considered that as a means to an end.

Furthermore, unlike Nazism, literally nothing about Socialism or Communism advocates genocide.

[War Gears]

Yet.

Fascism is the last ploy of socialists who cannot obtain power.

Over the course of this thread, you've expressed support for: corporatism, 'syndicalism', nationalism, anti-intellectualism, irrationalism, vitalism.

Sounds like you're projecting.

I don't think I ever denied that I went from far-right last year toward the Left, mainly through syndicalism due to a biography on Mazzini, then to a moderate non-statist corporatism which doesn't have much if anything in common with Fascist cartels which dominate the economy. Unless you think the guild system was "fascist."

The relationship of vitalism, irrationalism, and anti-intellectualism with Fascism is grossly over-exaggerated. The connection is mainly drawn by people who have an amateur understanding of those things. Neo-Hegelianism was the dominate school of thought under Fascism and intellectuals were courted more than anything. The main person responsible for the association of Fascism with anti-intellectualism, Giovanni Gentile wasn't even speaking about intellectualism as we understand it, but an eccentric interpretation of "abstract thought."

[Tekeristan]

WEWEST OF LADDIES

If I can believe in having a communist society in a democratic capitalist society you can do the reverse in a communist society. We're not Nazis.

Yet.

Fascism is the last ploy of socialists who cannot obtain power.

Hmmm